amplifier Archives

Building a “Brown Sound” Amplifier Inspired by Eddie Van Halen

Greg Gilman is a writer and musician based in Los Angeles, California, where he began his career as a reporter and editor for TheWrap. After forming rock band Greg in Good Company, he pivoted to freelance journalism, with his work appearing in publications including MovieMaker Magazine, Syfy Wire, and Make: magazine.

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January 27th, 2021February 4th, 2021

Shian Storm sought the legendary guitar tone of Eddie Van Halen, and embarked on a years-long journey to design and build an amplifier that could bring it to life.

Upcycle Glass Spheres into Unique Speaker Enclosures

By Jeremy S Cook

Jeremy S Cook

Jeremy is an engineer with 10 years experience at his full-time profession, and has a BSME from Clemson University. Outside of work he’s an avid maker and experimenter, building anything that comes into his mind!

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August 4th, 2015December 9th, 2015 2

If you were to create a speaker enclosure, conventional wisdom would have you starting with medium density fiberboard (MDF), or, possibly, some other wood product. Ryan Sweeney, however, decided instead to use a thick glass cylinder for each speaker, mounting them with cut bamboo. The idea for this came to him while he was working […]

Pump Your Tunes Through This Waveform Display Headphone Amplifier

By Jeremy S Cook

Jeremy S Cook

Jeremy is an engineer with 10 years experience at his full-time profession, and has a BSME from Clemson University. Outside of work he’s an avid maker and experimenter, building anything that comes into his mind!

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July 23rd, 2015July 22nd, 2015 3

Justin Yates, who has a degree in both electrical engineering and computer science, built a headphone amplifier with a waveform display.

Let’s Rock! with Weekend Projects and the MonoBox Powered Speaker

By Nick Normal

Nick Normal

I'm an artist & maker. A lifelong biblioholic, and advocate for all-things geekathon. Home is Long Island City, Queens, which I consider the greatest place on Earth. 5-year former Resident of Flux Factory, co-organizer for World Maker Faire (NYC), and blogger all over the net. Howdy!

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@nicknormal

November 30th, 2012December 9th, 2015 24

Build a small powered speaker to amplify your portable music player, and install everything inside a cigar box or an enclosure of your own design.

Jamming on Lightwaves in this Weekend Project

By Nick Normal

Nick Normal

I'm an artist & maker. A lifelong biblioholic, and advocate for all-things geekathon. Home is Long Island City, Queens, which I consider the greatest place on Earth. 5-year former Resident of Flux Factory, co-organizer for World Maker Faire (NYC), and blogger all over the net. Howdy!

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@nicknormal

July 26th, 2012April 17th, 2015 14

Build an optical guitar using a common LM386 audio amp chip.

The Most Beautiful Homemade Device I’ve Ever Seen

By Sean Michael Ragan

Sean Michael Ragan

I am descended from 5,000 generations of tool-using primates. Also, I went to college and stuff. I am a long-time contributor to MAKE magazine and makezine.com. My work has also appeared in ReadyMade, c't – Magazin für Computertechnik, and The Wall Street Journal.

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@seanragan

April 12th, 2012 28

I’ve been writing about DIY electronics for almost four years, and reading about it a lot longer than that, and I can say without hesitation that this freeform headphone amp from Briton Rupert Hirst is the best-looking homemade device I’ve seen in all that time. I see a lot of projects that are longer on technical skill and shorter on design and aesthetics, and its nice to see someone making waves by taking the opposite approach.

Amped Up Interview with OddWatt Audio

By Goli Mohammadi

Goli Mohammadi

I'm a word nerd who loves to geek out on how emerging technology affects the lexicon. I was an editor on the first 40 volumes of MAKE, and I love shining light on the incredible makers in our community. In particular, covering art is my passion — after all, art is the first thing most of us ever made. When not fawning over perfect word choices, I can be found on the nearest mountain, looking for untouched powder fields and ideal alpine lakes.

Contact me at snowgoli@gmail.com or via @snowgoli.

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January 4th, 2012 2

Calling all audiophiles: looking for a quality amp kit made in the U.S. by fellow makers? Look no further than OddWatt Audio‘s line of amp and pre-amp kits. Our own Jake Spurlock gave their PoddWatt Series 1 Amp kit a raving review in our special Make: Ultimate Kits Guide

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